Boral's outgoing and disaster-prone chief executive Mike Kane mused in February that it would take a "superman" to right the company, then still reeling from an accounting scandal amid general tough market conditions.

Well, step forward ex-Brambles exec Zlatko Todorcevski, who's replacing the pugnacious New Yorker ahead of schedule on July 1. We're pretty sure Todorcevski can't fly and an earnings downgrade at Brambles nine weeks after he stopped being its CFO in 2016 does blot his record. But he has an edge. As deputy chairman of Adbri (the old Adelaide Brighton), he's all over the opposition.